


A Partridge In A Pasty

by redandgold



Series: banterville [1]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: CARRAVILLE FLUFF FINALLY, M/M, random mentions of jonjo shelvey, some banter included (arsenal/chelsea fans look away), steven gerrard cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:35:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5474708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie decides that what Gary really needs in his life is a Scouse retelling of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Jamie's an idiot.</p><p>“Please consider leaving something edible tomorrow,” Gary writes a message on spare notepaper, and because it looks a bit stern and ungrateful, adds a “:)” at the end of it. He leaves the note on the steps, much to the confusion of his housekeeper, who has half a mind to tear it up, until she asks herself <i>why are strange people feeding my employer? Am I not feeding him enough?</i> and realises that the answer is probably yes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Partridge In A Pasty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anemoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/gifts), [guti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/guti/gifts), [jjjat3am](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/gifts), [Ampaseh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ampaseh/gifts), [saltstreets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/gifts).



> ermagerd, AU where Rach doesn't write angst!! Dedicated to all the beautiful people who have written Carraville fic and made life fabulous. Happy holidays, everybody <3
> 
> ([Here](http://www.41051.com/xmaslyrics/twelvedays.html) are the lyrics of the 12 Days of Christmas, in case you, like me, completely tune out after Five Gold Rings)

**i.**

On the first day of Christmas, Gary opens his front door to find a parcel sitting on the steps. The last couple times he’s had mysterious parcels on his doorstep, they’ve all been from Liverpool fans and they’ve all been things that he still can’t properly explain to his kids, so naturally he eyes this one with slight trepidation. Surely there can’t have been Liverpool fans desperate enough to follow him all the way to Valencia. And surely, if there had been, they would have targeted Scouser/Manc Philip beforehand. There’s hardly any point in sending your brother to test the piranha-infested waters if it turns out that he’s the king of piranhas and leaves you to be picked as clean as Arsenal’s FA Cups (because, reasons Gary, ten years’ worth of polish and two trophies only leads to one conclusion).

“Shush,” he scrunches up his face, reminding himself to remind himself to save the banter for appropriate moments (it is still vaguely annoying that Jack Wilshire has blocked all unknown numbers). Hoping against hope that this isn’t a weird Trojan Horse kind of gimmick, and that Steven Gerrard isn’t going to jump out of the box and laugh in his face, Gary picks it up and carries it into the house. He spends a further five minutes staring at it before peeling off the (badly taped) tape.

There are partridges, and then there are pasties, and then, apparently, there are partridges in pasties.

It’s not even a real partridge. Someone with very mediocre drawing skills has attempted to trace an outline on the pasty casing, with very mediocre success. Gaz pulls out his phone and sends Scholesy a text.

 **Gaz (5:02 AM)  
** _Is this ur idea of a joke mate?_

 **Scholesy (5:03 AM)  
** _Is this your idea of a normal hour at which to be awake?_

Gary frowns and resumes his staring contest with an inanimate object. He has a bad feeling that he will have many staring contests with many inanimate objects over the next few days. He eats the pasty anyway.

 

**ii.**

The next morning, the (badly) taped box is also (badly) wrapped – a bright, slightly garish red that pleases Gary nevertheless. The pasty wasn’t all that bad, and his housekeeper has banned him from sitting in the kitchen for more than ten minutes at a time and/or going within five metres of the fridge, so Gary happily takes it in and opens it.

It’s not a pasty. It’s a pair of turtle figurines that have, for some odd reason, been painted entirely white. Gary picks one up and squints at it, tapping his finger on the porcelain shell with an expression halfway between confusion and disappointment. They look to be about as palatable as Giggsy’s attempts to poach salmon (they’ve all sworn off sashimi).

“Please consider leaving something edible tomorrow,” Gary writes a message on spare notepaper, and because it looks a bit stern and ungrateful, adds a “:)” at the end of it. He leaves the note on the steps, much to the confusion of his housekeeper, who has half a mind to tear it up, until she asks herself _why are strange people feeding my employer? Am I not feeding him enough?_ and realises that the answer is probably yes.

 

**iii.**

This time he decides to call Philip, because he knows that he’ll be in the gym right about now, and there is nothing more satisfying than interrupting Phil at the gym (unless it’s eating pasties, which he’s evidently not going to get to do today). He leaves the phone on the table and continues to stare at the eggs while waiting for the stream of exasperated swear words to die down.

“Phil,” he says finally, “d’you know if Scholesy or someone’s been playing jokes on me? I just had three eggs left on my doorstep, yesterday I had two dove-coloured turtles, and the day before that I got a pasty.”

“Ooh,” says Phil, immediately mollified at the thought of English food. “Was it any good?”

“That’s not the point,” says Gary, though he gives it a think anyway. “Yeah.”

“Mm. Jealous.” Phil seems to have forgotten the fact that his current location quite prevents him from craving unhealthy food on a moral level.

“Sod food for a moment and help me out, will you?”

“Sod food? This is serious.”

“Philip, there’re two things you’re shit at. One is football and the other is lying. You know something, don’t you?”

Phil puts down the phone even before defending himself against the football jibe, which is one of the more highly suspicious things Gary has seen him doing, and that includes creeping around in a balaclava just before Gary’s car was mysteriously filled with Everton kits. Gary scrunches up his nose and stares at the three eggs in the carton, each painted in a solid colour to form the French flag.

He’d meant to make an omelette, but his cooking abilities border on the nonexistent, and the girls get scrambled eggs for dinner instead. Gary maintains it’s better than anything Phil has ever cooked, which isn’t saying very much.

 

**iv.**

Gary has no idea what calling birds are, and evidently his mysterious benefactor doesn’t either, because when Gary next opens his door there are four nonplussed women milling about. One of them hands him a phone and then they all scarper before Gary can ask them anything (which wouldn’t have been all that useful, considering he only knows how to say ‘buenas dias’, ‘buenas noches’, and several words which would require asterisks).

At least now he knows that whoever’s behind this is decidedly English and probably Northern. “Birds,” Gary mutters, shaking his head as he dials the first number programmed into the phone (‘top man’).

“Hey, baby,” someone whispers, and Gary drops the phone. He spends the next hour scrubbing his hands with soap and smashing the offending object into pieces with a sledgehammer before driving to a random field in the country to bury them. On the way back, he reflects sorrowfully that he can’t bury the fact that he now knows what a seductive Scouse accent sounds like (or indeed what a seductive Steven fucking Gerrard sounds like).

 

**v.**

When the five gold rings turn out to be round gold medallions that have little Champions League logos on them, Gary thinks that he’s got just the _smidgen_ of an inkling who this could be.

 **Good Lad Gary (8:32 AM)  
** _Stop it._

 **James (9:47 AM)  
** _Stop what?_

 **Good Lad Gary (9:48 AM)  
** _You know very well what._

**James (9:50 AM)  
** _I can’t._

 **Good Lad Gary (9:50 AM)  
** _Why not?_

**James (9:53 AM)  
** _Not even Fergie could stop United’s glorious slide into obscurity, so quit whinging about it._

When Philip pops by later, he’s careful not to comment either on the slight indent in the wall or the red mark on Gary’s forehead.

 

**vi.**

Gary realises how grateful he must be for two things: firstly, that live geese are probably incredibly difficult to ship, and secondly, that Grey Goose produces very fine vodka.

He’s about a bottle and a half in before he decides that drunk-dialling Suspect Number One would be a very good idea. Jamie picks up on the third ring and says, “Sick of Spain already?”

“Your face,” Gary says eloquently.

Jamie laughs. “Yes, it’s a right work of art, isn’t it? Unlike your ugly mug. I should be hung up in the fucking Tate.”

“Mmm.”  

Gary can feel Carragher raising an eyebrow. “Did you just ‘mmm’ my face?”

“It is a very mmmm-able face.”

Jamie’s uncomfortable squirming is palpable even over the incredibly sorry state that is the phone line between Valencia and Liverpool. “Eh. Neville. Can you call me ugly? This is weirding me out.”

Gary giggles. “But you’re nooot,” he whines, the sober part of his brain utterly terrified that Phil is going to walk in, see his brother sweet-talking a Scouser, walk back out, and chuck himself off the nearest available cliff. “You’re the _cutest_.”

“Oi, Gaz.” Jamie’s voice has achieved that tone of panic known only to dogs who can’t catch their tails. “Banter, remember? I’m not cute, I’m a demon-child from the wastelands of Liverpool, famed for not being able to produce a single pretty face. You’re Rat Boy, saving the world one piece of discarded cheese at a time. Remember?”

“You know what I wanna do?” Gary asks fondly, staring at the bottle of Grey Goose that Jamie is probably deeply regretting right about now. “I wanna fly over and give you a big, wet, soppy hug. And then I wanna unbutton your shirt and – ”

Gary thinks it’s a real pity that only the dial tone will ever know what he said. Scholesy offers a transcript of his second drunk call, should Garry ever need a reminder (or to be blackmailed).

 

**vii.**

While it’s probably illegal to send the Queen’s swans overseas, Gary thinks that seven plastic rubber ducks with Jonjo Shelvey heads crudely cut out and stuck on is pushing it.

 

**viii.**

**Good Lad Gary (6:03AM)  
** _There’s a cow. On my doorstep._

 **James (6:12 AM)  
** _It must be a mooving sight._

**Good Lad Gary (6:15 AM)  
** _Couldn’t afford eight milkmaids?_

**James (6:17 AM)  
** _Milk it yourself._ _You milk results on a dairy basis, after all._

 **Good Lad Gary (6:18 AM)  
** _Your puns are udderly atrocious._

**James (6:20 AM)  
** _As are you._

**ix.**

Only under certain contexts would someone not appreciate the artistic form that is nine lovely ladies performing a beautifully synchronized and well-rehearsed dance, and one of those contexts is when that someone is Gary Neville and the nine lovely ladies are wearing Liverpool kits bearing the top names in his Worst Scousers blacklist.

They do this thing where they spell out ‘KLOPP’ with their pom-poms and it is only out of politeness (and possible bad publicity) that Gary does not slam the door in their faces. His patience is stretched about as thinly as the relegation ice upon which Chelsea skates when they turn Liverpool’s league titles into a cheer. The girls wake up and come to the door and think they’re absolutely _delightful_ and will they please do it again. Gary excuses himself, checks that he still has Jamie’s address, and looks up whether there’s an extradition policy between Spain and England.

 

**x.**

Frogs are evil. Ten frogs are even more evil. Ten frogs leaping around in a model of Lords cricket ground are the evilest of all.

Scholesy, who’s staying with Phil for a few days (Phil’s easier to push over), is the one who discovers the monstrosity on the doorstep. After pissing himself laughing for about half an hour, he rings Gary’s doorbell and continues to piss himself laughing at the sight of his face. He takes multiple pictures for posterity (Carragher) and isn’t cross at all when Gary throws a frog at him.

Phil, obviously, ends up adopting all of them. He names them after Great British Bake Off winners and lets them sit on his head while he’s on the treadmill. Scholesy keeps upsetting him by googling the lifespan of frogs.

 

**xi.**

“Are you fucking Scottish?” Gary yells over the sound of eleven bagpipes relentlessly drilling a tuneless rendition of _You’ll Never Walk Alone_ into his head.

“No,” Jamie says innocently, and Gary can tell that he’s trying very hard not to start singing along. “Unless ‘Scottish’ is your new nickname, in which case, maybe.”

“Ha ha,” Gaz growls in a voice that implies anything but laughter. “Do they accept Euros?”

“Dunno. Why?”

As the strains of _Glory Glory Man United_ filter over the line, Jamie yelps in dismay. “For the love of Bill Shankly in pants, turn that off.”

“Have you ever seen Bill Shankly in pants?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“I really wouldn’t.”

“Turn that _off_ ,” Jamie says again, “or you’re not going to get your present tomorrow.”

“What am I getting tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Gary hangs up, but enjoys one more chorus before sending them over to Phil’s with express instructions to play _He Scores Goals_ until they get Scholesy’s face to turn as red as his hair from all the yelling.

 

**xii.**

It is with a measure of apprehension that Gary answers the door. There are things he needs to see, and then there are things he does not need to see, and twelve drummers drumming are definitely on the latter list.

There’s not a drum in sight. There is, however, a Scouser.

“Merry Christmas,” Jamie says, taking off his jacket to reveal a very familiar jersey. Gary stares for a whole minute, and then some. Eventually he manages to make a strangled noise that sounds halfway between a growl and a squeal. Jamie is much amused.

“You took your time,” Gary says after much effort.

“Worth the wait, though, no?” Jamie grins, taking a step forward and leaning against the doorframe in what he probably thinks is an attractive manner (Gary begs to differ).

“Not at all.” Gary shudders. “It’s more horrendous than I thought. The Tate must have seriously lowered their standards.”

“I just flew three hours in the kit of my mortal enemy, and this is the response I get?” Jamie pulls a face and takes another step forward. “Unbelievable.”

“What was unbelievable were the frogs,” Gary retorts, taking another step backwards to accommodate the Scouse invasion.

“I thought you liked frogs.”

“I don’t. Neither the amphibian nor the French varieties.”

“Well. Phil likes them.”

“Go cuddle him instead, then.” Gary takes his last step back and finds the wall behind him. Jamie flashes him a smile that looks rather like a shark.

“I just might, you ungrateful bastard.”

“Bit tough to be grateful for Shelvey-fied ducks. What were you thinking?”

Jamie shrugs, pressing a hand against the wall and pinning Gary underneath him. “I wasn’t,” he whispers, his face inches away.

“Typical Scouser.” Gary grins his way into the kiss, reaching an arm around the silky soft fabric to pull Jamie even closer. There's a certain irony in that he’s been waiting for so long to see Jamie in that bloody kit, and the first thing he’s desperate to do is take it off.

**Author's Note:**

> \- In the UK, pants are underwear, so..yeah  
> \- Phil and Scholesy aka Scheville 2.0 are my favourite comic relief tag team  
> \- I'm sorry (but not sorry) for the Steven Gerrard cameo  
> \- Check out my [Carraville masterlist](http://carraville.tumblr.com/post/135386783292/carraville-and-in-that-moment-i-swear-we-were)! Always updating, so hit me up if you have anything to add ^^  
> \- I hope you liked it, and thank you for reading!<3


End file.
